Is it time for employers to stop being neurotic about Neuroticism?

5th February, 2019

Nikita Mikhailov

I wonder what comes to your mind as you
read the word Neuroticism? It’s one of the Big Five factors of personality
which is associated with a negative emotional effect.

Other factors include Extraversion
(positive emotional affect), Openness (curiosity and creativity), Agreeableness
(how nice you play with others) and Conscientiousness (your will power).

From a psychology perspective,
Neuroticism is a part of everyone’s personality. Some of us score higher, some
score lower, but we all have a bit of Neuroticism within us. At the same time,
Neuroticism is just a component of our personality and not the whole thing, so
we are not defined by it.

A curious observation is that the term
Neuroticism tends to be avoided. So how about we shed a bit more light on this
fascinating part of us all?:

Neuroticism can be a superpower of risk
perception. For me, when something happens where people did not take account of
the risks, for instance if an ad campaign comes out causing a blowback, I think
out loud “if only there was more Neuroticism, this may have never happened!”

From a more day to day employer’s
perspective, we should be aware of the possible impact of neuroticism, here are
some of the examples:

Change Management

Neuroticism has been identified as one
of the factors that makes people less open to organisational changes.
Therefore, saying how great everything will be after the change is not
necessarily the best way forward. What helps is creating focus groups where
people can voice their concerns (without interruptions) and if mission-critical
risks are identified explore how those can be addressed. On a bright side, it
might also bring out into the light possible issues you might have not thought of
before.

Performance review

People who score higher on Neuroticism
tend to be self-critical and have a negative bias towards themselves. So, if
you ask them what they could have improved on during the year, they are likely
to come up with an extensive list. However, because of their negativity bias,
they might not be as receptive to positive feedback. Thus, when presenting
someone higher on Neuroticism with positive feedback, it is important to ask
them “What did you hear? Or “Put it in your own words” or “Anything else comes
to your mind?” Make sure to wait up to 10 seconds for an answer as they might
not respond immediately.

Navigating Neuroticism

Saying all that, there is such thing as
having too much Neuroticism. This is where it starts to negatively affect a person’s
wellbeing. Saying to somebody higher on Neuroticism to “be happy” is unlikely
to work as you are asking them to be extraverted which is slightly different.
What has been shown to be effective is Therapy, Mindfulness (with mixed
results), a good amount of sleep, nutrition… maybe less coffee or it might be
just me.

First of all, a person might need to
realise that they need help in managing their Neuroticism. As the anecdote
goes: “How many psychologists does it take to change the lightbulb? - One, but
the lightbulb needs to want to change”.

Currently, I am seeing a lot of posts
on how to be Happy. That is the ultimate state. There’s no mention of Neuroticism, or if
it is mentioned then it is something to be avoided at all costs.

To me, that is not a healthy approach
because it is so important to treat us and others as whole human beings with
dark and light within us, rather than value one over the other.

It has been a while since George
Bernard Shaw beautifully said: “Both pessimists and optimists contribute to
society. The optimist creates the aeroplane, the pessimist - the parachute”.

Nikita Mikhailov

Nikita Mikhailov is a Psychometrician specialising in Personality Dynamics. He works with individuals and teams across a variety of settings, including startups, financial sector, charities and even a Space Agency.
One of his favourite pursuits is bringing the actionable insights from psychology to a wider public, not forgetting a good dose of humour. This is why he started PsyPub!